The kids have been pestering you for weeks about getting a pet. You consider getting a dog but you know that the barking will annoy the neighbours. And you also know that you don’t want a dog pooping all over the garden. Cats are nice but they scratch furniture. Have you considered keeping chickens as the ideal way to provide low maintenance pets for the kids?

There’s so many reasons why keeping chickens is such a great hobby, and why chickens make such wonderful pets. You’ll never hear a chicken barking, and although a rooster crows there is absolutely no need for you to get a rooster. And kids love having chickens, I know my kids spend hours playing with the chickens.

And there’s an added bonus to having chickens. You get eggs.

When it comes to buying a pet so few people think about getting chickens. If your council allows you to have chickens at home, and most do, it’s certainly worth considering. However before you buy those first few chickens there’s one thing that you will need. A good chicken house.

The henhouse needn’t be enormous. If you only have 3 or 4 hens then a modest size henhouse will house them admirably provided it has a nesting area and rungs for them to roost on at night.

A good hen house is easy to build. A large part of the chicken house is simply wire mesh, and building a chicken house is a simple matter of building a frame of treated timber and covering the frame with wire. It is usually unnecessary to have a floor on the house as it sits on the ground.

And a small henhouse for 3 or 4 hens, if you add wheels one end and handles the other, can be moved around the garden so that the chicken droppings can fertilise the lawn in different spots from time to time. And there’s no reason chickens can’t free range around the garden during the day.

It’s the perfect handyman project for you to do together with the kids. Buy some materials, grab a hammer and nails, round up the kids and spend the afternoon building a fine chook house for your soon-to-be chicken collection. The kids will love it.

So if you’ve been searching around for a great idea for a pet for the children and consider getting your own chickens. Spend some quality time with the kids showing in your handyman skills building a simple chicken house and you’ll have happy kids, happy chickens and lots of eggs for dinner.

Then find yourself a good recipe book, learn how to make omelettes or soufflé, cook up a fine dinner for the family and you’ll be a hero.